To distinguish between the two, in a nutshell:
Once upon a time there was just outbound marketing, which involved marketers pushing messages through channels such as trade shows or TV advertising and other traditional marketing means, with the aim being that these messages would connect with a potential customer and result in a sale.
Today, things have changed and many marketers, realising that the customer is in control, are turning their attention to ways of drawing customers in with their consent; in other words, inbound marketing.
What brought this change on?
What brought this change on, when for so many decades, outbound marketing was the only way brands reached their customers?
First, with information overload reaching a tipping point, consumers started getting really good at blocking out messages. Given that the average human is bombarded with thousands of marketing interruptions every day, who could blame them?
Some of the ever more creative ways of shutting these messages out are caller ID, spam filtering and PVR. The end result is that where we can control what we read, see and hear, we do.
The second major reason for the shift from outbound traditional marketing is that technology happened. The Internet happened. The way people buy products changed. We now use the Internet to buy what we want. Even if we don't buy online, we educate ourselves online before we make a purchase.
Taking advantage of changing purchasing habits
So what exactly is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing involves a strategic process of search engine marketing, content (blogging, videos, white papers and so on), social media and lead generation, to help you get found, generate leads and transform them into customers by earning their permission to engage with and nurture them.
Inbound marketing is not new. People have been using forms of it for years. Let's face it, though; neither was "content marketing" new when the phrase was coined just over 10 years ago.
For some time now, everyone has been talking about creating content, SEO, and social media. Inbound marketing ties these pieces together in a cohesive and meaningful way. So meaningful, in fact, that many businesses in the US are increasing their inbound marketing budgets.
Bigger part of marketing budget
In some industries, inbound marketing is even getting a bigger part of the marketing budget - due to the fact that companies using inbound marketing are reporting a dramatically lower cost per lead than outbound.
Inbound marketing generally makes use of software that allows you to measure, track and improve what you are doing in real time, so you can make a call on the spot to do more of what's working and less of what's not.
Furthermore, inbound marketing technology can be integrated with your existing CRM systems so you can close the loop with your sales activities and then measure what activities are actually making money for the company. In this way, inbound marketing becomes a revenue-building tool, rather than just an online advertising tool.
Inbound marketing is being hailed as the great leveller of the playing field, enabling smaller companies to compete with their larger counterparts at a much lower cost than with outbound marketing. These companies are seeing that, with inbound marketing, they don't have to spend a lot to be an effective marketer.
Time investment significantly higher
While the financial investment may be lower, however, the time investment is significantly higher than with traditional methods.
The greatest advantage of inbound marketing is that your leads know they have a need for what you offer. They have found you because they are already looking to buy your product or service. By the time they engage with you, they are ready to spend. There is no convincing, no hard sell.
The inbound marketing diehards say that, rather than pushing outbound marketing to the masses of people who are trying to block you out anyway, use inbound marketing where you help yourself get found by people already looking for what you offer.
In my opinion, inbound marketing is an essential part of marketing today. But am I a diehard inbound marketer? No.
The challenge
Most marketers are still using outbound marketing and should continue doing so, because it remains effective when used correctly. The challenge is using both inbound and outbound marketing tactics and integrating them in a way that yields even better results than just one tactic would have on its own.
That said, organisations are consistently seeing the high-efficiency of inbound marketing. If it continues to deliver the desired results, inbound marketing can expect to find a permanent spot in marketing plans and may even start to tip marketing budgets in its favour.
